WHITE PLAINS—The New York Power Authority (NYPA)
Trustees Tuesday approved low-cost hydropower allocations, totaling
2,100 kilowatts (kw), for two manufacturers in Niagara and Orleans
counties in support of plans to add 32 new jobs and capital
investments of over $11 million.

The allocations, from NYPA’s Niagara Power Project,
are slated for Saint-Gobain Ceramics and Plastics, Inc., in Niagara
Falls, and EPCO Carbondioxide Products Inc., in Medina, and were
recommended by the Western New York Advisory Group, consisting of
NYPA, National Grid, Empire State Development Corp., the Buffalo
Niagara Enterprise and Niagara County.

The allocation to Saint-Gobain Ceramics would be
related to its investment of several million dollars for additional
capacity to manufacture existing and new products including the
purchase and installation of new equipment. In return for the
allocation of 1,100 kw, the company would create 12 jobs and
maintain 57 existing jobs.

The hydropower would come from a 445,000-kw block
of Niagara power called replacement power. Saint-Gobain Ceramics is
also receiving support from Niagara County with training grants.
This investment is crucial to the future of this operation since it
advances the production technologies used which will increase its
competitiveness in worldwide markets and prevent the transfer of
production jobs to Saint-Gobain facilities in other parts of the
world.

EPCO will install a new, 300 ton per-day liquid CO2
manufacturing plant which will include a new building and equipment,
and involve an investment of $7 million. The company will create 20
new jobs in return for an allocation of 1,000 kw of replacement
power.

Replacement power and expansion power, another
block of Niagara hydropower reserved for economic development in
Western New York, account for 695,000 kw, or more than one-quarter
of the Niagara Project’s net dependable capacity of 2,400,000 kw.
Nearly 44,000 jobs on the Niagara Frontier are linked to allocations
from the project, reflecting more than 70 percent of the area’s
manufacturing jobs.

About NYPA:

■ NYPA uses no tax money or state credit. It
finances its operations through the sale of bonds and revenues
earned in large part through sales of electricity. ■ NYPA is a
leader in promoting energy-efficiency, new energy technologies and
electric transportation initiatives. ■ It is the nation’s
largest state-owned electric utility, with 18 generating facilities
in various parts of the state and more than 1,400 circuit-miles of
transmission lines.